Defra Farming Innovation Investor Partnership

A new £5m round of the Investor Partnerships competition is open, blending grant funding with private investment to help small, and medium sized Agri-Tech businesses scale and commercialise innovative technology that is close to market.

Investor Partnership competitions, delivered by Innovate UK and funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), enable Agri-tech businesses to receive grants for innovative projects alongside private capital from investors, supporting commercialisation and growth of emerging agri-tech.

About the Investor Partnerships Competition

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to invest up to £5 million in innovation projects. Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £750,000 and £3 million.

This funding is linked to Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme delivered by Innovate UK.

The aim of this competition is to:

• develop ambitious late stage innovative solutions, technologies, systems or approaches that will make significant steps towards improving productivity, profitability, increasing sustainability and resilience
• help the agriculture sector move towards achieving net zero emissions by 2050
• support commercialisation of late stage experimental development projects that are close to market and ultimately their adoption by farmers

Your proposal must be able to demonstrate how the project will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England.

To be offered grant funding your project must be assessed as eligible for grant funding and must have secured aligned investment with a lead investor from the pool.

You can view the areas of expertise and investment preferences for the pool of investors.

You can apply for this competition before you speak to an investor but initiating dialogue with investors is strongly encouraged.

In addition to investment, the lead investors in the pool can provide you with commercial acumen in, for example:

• leadership
• market access
• skills
• resources

Successful UK registered SME’s will receive:

• grant funding from Innovate UK
• aligned investment funding with one of the programme’s pool of investors acting as the lead investor

Eligibility

• Competition opens: Monday 11 May 2026
• Competition closes: Wednesday 17 June 2026 11:00am

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs of between £750,000 and £3 million
• last 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• be able to demonstrate how it will benefit farmers, growers or foresters in England

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME)
• be prepared to negotiate heads of terms for an aligned private investment

Find out more and apply on the Government’s Funding service website.

See more open funding calls in our Funding Finder.